Jun Ye and Immanuel Bloch share 2026 Wolf physics prize
The award recognises advances in controlling ultracold atomic systems, with the two physicists splitting $100,000.
AI illustrationJun Ye and Immanuel Bloch will share the 2026 Wolf Prize in Physics and its $100,000 award. The recognition concerns advances in the control of ultracold atomic systems, a field that underpins Ye's work on exceptionally precise optical atomic clocks.
Ye is a physicist at JILA, the joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado Boulder. Bloch is scientific director at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany.
Ye and his collaborators have developed optical atomic clocks using ultrastable lasers and precise control of interactions between atoms trapped by lasers. The institute said that work has produced record accuracy and stability and is helping prepare for a redefinition of international time and frequency measurement standards.
The research has also created opportunities to test fundamental physics. These include searches for the electron's electric dipole moment, changes in fundamental constants and work in relativistic geodesy. The award recognises control of atomic systems with applications extending beyond clock development itself.
Ye joined JILA in 1992, where he studied under physicist John Hall. He had previously completed a physics degree at Shanghai Jiao-Tong University and moved to the United States in 1989. His earlier honours include a share of the 2022 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for atomic-clock research.
He is also a fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Wolf Prize has been presented in most years since 1978 to living scientists and artists. Ye credited his mentors, colleagues, students and postdoctoral researchers for their part in his work.